Both applications are part of UberMedia, a startup that has made a name for itself by acquiring high-profile Twitter clients for multiple platforms and devices. Last week, UberMedia acquired TweetDeck for an estimated $30 million.

Twitter posted a notice in the Twitter Help Center informing users of the change. Twitter says:

“Every day, we suspend hundreds of applications that are in violation of our policies. Generally, these apps are used by a small number of users. We are taking the unusual step of sharing this with you because today’s suspension may affect a larger number of users.”

Twidroyd and UberTwitter users can download the official Twitter mobile apps or can migrate to other third-party clients.

We reached out to Twitter for additional information. The company told us:

“We ask all developers in the Twitter ecosystem to abide by a simple set of rules that are in the interests of our users, as well as the health and vitality of the platform as a whole.

We often take actions to enforce these rules; in fact, on an average day we turn off more than one hundred services that violate our API rules of the road. This keeps the ecosystem fair for everyone.

Today we suspended several applications, including UberTwitter, twidroyd and UberCurrent, which have violated Twitter policies and trademarks in a variety of ways. These violations include, but aren’t limited to, a privacy issue with private Direct Messages longer than 140 characters, trademark infringement, and changing the content of users’ Tweets in order to make money.

We’ve had conversations with UberMedia, the developer of these applications, about policy violations since April 2010, when they first launched under the name TweetUp – a term commonly used by Twitter users and a trademark violation. We continue to be in contact with UberMedia and hope that they will bring the suspended applications into compliance with our policies soon.”

In other words, as long as the apps can follow the rules, they should be accessible to users again in the future. We have also reached out to UberMedia for comment and will provide further updates if representatives get back to us.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down, more than two weeks after the protests that began January 25 in the country — and launched a flood of #Jan25 and #Egypt tweets as well as media coverage that broke the mold — to remove the president from power.

From the beginning, the revolution in Egypt was propelled by the use of social media. It at least partly began on Facebook with the creation of Facebook groups that gained hundreds of thousands of members and promoted the early protests in Cairo.

Subsequently, the government blocked Facebook and Twitter and eventually shut down Internet access completely. And with the outside world following the unfolding revolution online, political leaders and others, including Twitter, spoke out against the violence and freedom of expression issues at risk.

But even a government shut down couldn’t keep the news from flowing. Twitter and Facebook users found ways to work around the blackout. Though, eventually access was completely restored.

The events in Egypt served as a flash point for journalists on the ground, too. For perhaps one of the first times in history, history itself has been recorded instantaneously, as reporters took to Twitter to share 140-character updates and personal stories from the protests. The messages provided a stark reality to readers in the outside world, especially as the protests turned violent and police turned on journalists — the very people many of us outside the country were following.

But Al Jazeera had its “CNN Moment,” and although it couldn’t reach viewers in the U.S. by cable television, it found a way to viewers — on YouTube. The network live streamed Mubarak’s public address — in which many believed he would resign — Thursday via YouTube. But Al Jazeera’s comprehensive coverage put it on the radar for U.S. viewers and it created a campaign to bring its English-language network to U.S. televisions.

Without a doubt, social media, mobile devices and the web have brought the stories from Egypt closer to home. And conversely, the events in Egypt have shown the strength of these tools for both organizing and informing people. The Egyptian people and reporters alike found ways to share their messages even when the government tried to stop them. Using VPN, proxy sites, third party apps and other tools, they were able to continue sharing news with those of us on the outside. And at the same time, the rest of the world found ways to use tech to curate and disseminate information.

We’re hearing chatter about a possible sale of Twitter, and extraordinary valuations are part of the conversation, with various executives talking about numbers upwards of $10 billion.

According to the Wall Street Journal,Facebook and Google executives have engaged in “low-level talks” with Twitter. According to the WSJ’s “people familiar with the matter,” those discussions are estimating the value of the microblogging service “in the neighborhood of $8 billion to $10 billion.”

But don’t get your hopes up, because those same sources are saying that the talks aren’t getting anywhere yet. Could that $10 billion number be too low? It’s hard to believe that just two months ago, Owen Thomas at Venture Beat was calling a $3 billion valuation for Twitter “nonsense.”

High, indeed, but there’s a high value placed on attention, and Twitter’s getting that: In fact, the company set an all-time record for tweets during a sporting event during the final minutes of last weekend’s Super Bowl, recording an astonishing 4064 tweets in a single second.

The overall record was set last New Year’s Eve in Japan where revelers sent a total of 6,939 tweets per second just after the clock struck midnight. Now that’s engagement.

What do you think, readers? Is Twitter actually worth somewhere between $8 billion and $10 billion? Please let us know in the comments.

The National Labor Relations Board and Dawnmarie Souza agreed yesterday to end a lawsuit over Souza’s firing, which occurred after she made some derogatory remarks about her employers on Facebook.

The financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but we do know that Souza will not be returning to work at the same company.

The woman’s employer, a Connecticut ambulance company, is also changing its blogging and Internet use policies in ways that will no longer prohibit employees from talking about work online, even if such talk constitutes what the company called “online badmouthing” at the start of Souza’s hearing.

Especially since Souza was writing on her personal computer, at home and on her own time, her remarks about her employers were considered protected speech, according to the NLRB. The ambulance company’s social media and Internet policies were in violation of certain laws that protect employees’ right to talk about wages, working conditions and other factors.

As NLRB regional director Jonathan Kreisberg told the Associated Press, “The fact that they agreed to revise their rules so that they’re not so overly restrictive of the rights of employees to discuss their terms and conditions with others and with their fellow employees is the most significant thing that comes out of this.”

Still, the variable location, timing, tone and content of Facebook comments mean that not all Facebook posts are protected speech; employees should still exercise good judgement when discussing work and personal matters online.

We’re also following a similar case in which a high school student was suspended for making vulgar and derogatory remarks on Facebook about one of his teachers. Stay tuned to see if that case goes to court.

Facebook’s privacy settings are extremely detailed, giving you the ability to fine-tune the privacy aspects of almost every little part of your Facebook account. Unfortunately, for most users, this level of micromanagement makes Facebook’s privacy settings a convoluted mess.

Even worse, these settings change often; you may think you know everything there is about them, only to be greeted with a completely different layout and a bunch of new options the next time you visit the dreaded Facebook Privacy Settings page.

So, what do you do when you’ve got over 170 options to choose from? You focus on the most important ones. We’ve entered Facebook’s maze of privacy options and came out on the other side bruised, battered, but with 10 essential settings in our hands. Disregard them at your own peril!

1. Sharing on Facebook

Account > Privacy Settings > Sharing on Facebook

Controlling how you share content is quite complex and will probably make your head hurt, but it’s essential that you take a good look at the settings and decide for yourself what you want to share and with whom.

Facebook gives you the easy way out: You can share content with Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends only. However, if you’re using lists (see item number eight on this list), you might want to customize the settings and set a certain type of content to be visible to the people on some of your lists, and invisible to others. For example, only my close friends can see all my photos, while business associates can see just a few.

It’s important to note the “Preview my Profile” option which lets you see your profile as someone else would. Setting all the options just right can sometimes be tricky. When in doubt, defer to this option.

2. Existing Photos

Settings for sharing content on Facebook can be treacherous as they don’t always apply to all your existing photos. With this setting, you can go through your old albums and change the privacy setting for each one, including your Wall Photos.

3. Checking In to Places

Another setting under Sharing on Facebook often goes unnoticed, and it can be very important, as it lets your friends check you in to Places. Having someone else telling the world where you are can be unpleasant and even dangerous in some cases. If you want to avoid it, disable this feature.

Furthermore, these settings determine how people can find you on Facebook. Can they do it simply by searching for your name? Can anyone add you as a friend, and send you a message?

Here, you can change those settings to Friends Only, Friends of Friends, Everyone or — in some cases — customize them. For example, if you get pestered by too many anonymous messages, you might consider letting only your friends send them. Be careful: If you set everything to the strictest available privacy setting, people may have a harder time finding you on Facebook.

5. Apps You Use

Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Apps You Use

This is another painful setting as it usually means wading through dozens of apps and either removing them or editing the privacy settings for each of them individually.

We suggest removing all of the apps you’re not using (hint: If you can’t remember what it is, you probably don’t need it), and carefully reviewing the permissions you’ve given each individual app. For example, some apps like to post on your Wall even though they don’t require the option to function.

6. Instant Personalization

We’ve covered this setting in-depth before. For detailed info on what it does, check out this article. Essentially, it lets third-party websites personalize your experience, which can be nice, but it also allows access to your personal data.

You can opt-out of Instant Personalization on individual third-party websites, such as Pandora, simply by clicking on “No Thanks” when asked about it. However, on Facebook you can completely disable it by leaving the checkbox before “Enable instant personalization on partner websites” unchecked.

7. Info Accessible to Your Friends

This is where Facebook’s privacy settings get really tricky, and most users don’t realize it. No matter how tight your privacy settings are, you’re still sharing some of your content and info with a group of people, even if it’s only your closest friends. However, what you share with them doesn’t necessarily end with them, especially if their privacy settings are lax. In the end, your friends might be sharing your info with third-party services, which is precisely what you want to avoid.

With this setting, you can set exactly what information is available to apps and websites if your friends use them.

8. Public Search

Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Public Search

When someone searches for you on a search engine, they might get a preview of your public profile which, in some cases, can be very revealing. If you don’t want that to happen, you should turn this option off.

9. Friend Lists

Friends > Edit Friends > Create a List

If you’re a typical Facebook user, you have 130 friends, and it’s very likely that you don’t want to share every detail of your life with all of these people.

This is where Friend Lists come into play. By creating lists of — for example — your family members, close friends and business acquaintances, you can finely tune the details you want to share with each list (as explained above).

Creating lists can be a bit dull at first, especially if you start doing it when you already have hundreds of friends, but once you set them up, it’s easy to add each new friend to a particular list.

10. Enabling HTTPS

The last setting we’d like to highlight has more to do with security than privacy. However, if someone hacks into your account or sniffs your data (which can be easily done with an app like Firesheep), all the privacy settings in the world won’t help you protect it.

Recently, Facebook started introducing HTTPS support, which makes it a lot harder for someone connected to the same network to sniff your password and other data. It makes Facebook a bit slower, and certain features don’t work yet, but we highly recommend it as HTTPS is essential to online security on all web services, not just Facebook.

If the option isn’t available to you just yet, don’t worry. Facebook promised it will gradually roll out the feature in the following weeks.